Hannity: First Class Jerk

Sean Hannity has cancelled an appearance at Washington University in St. Louis because the students sponsoring him could not come up with a private jet that satisfied him and the first-class ticket they offered instead wasn't good enough either.

Students at Washington University had wanted Hannity to speak on campus to counter the appearance of liberal filmmaker Michael Moore. Our thanks go to Sasha, for forwarding this item from the college's student paper.

The article by Rachel Streitfeld in Student Life says Hannity's agent also wanted the students trying to arrange his appearance to lie about why he cancelled the speech, but they refused to do so.

"Hannity cited personal reasons for his cancellation, said law student Ruth Hollander after speaking with the right-wing pundit over the phone yesterday. Hannity, Hollander said, requested a private jet to fly him to St. Louis for the speech, but then rejected 'several' different jets offered by a private donor. He told Hollander about a 'bad experience' with the prominent company that had manufactured all the jets offered for his trip.

"'[Hannity's agent] said he thought we should say that because of the short time frame involved, it didn't work out,' said Hollander. 'I said I didn't think that was the truth, and...I really felt we had met all of our commitments and we were going to be honest when asked.'"

Hannity also rejected a first-class ticket which the students offered him when they could not find an acceptable private jet, Hollander said. She said that Hannity "was very forceful on the phone. It was hard to get a word in edgewise with him. He was interrupting me a lot."

Hollander and other students had raised $20,000 to bring Hannity to campus. Wonder how much of that was for the dancing girls dropping rose petals in his path as this self-described regular guy ascended the podium to speak?